


Pastel Sailboats

by emjam



Series: lgbtq+ gravity falls [7]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Bisexual Stan Pines, But it's not super serious, Coming Out, Family Feels, Filbrick Pines' Bad Parenting, Fluff and Angst, Gay Ford Pines, Gen, Haircuts, Internalized Homophobia, POV Ford Pines, Post-Canon, Queer Themes, Sea Grunkles, mostly fluff tho let's be honest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22764331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emjam/pseuds/emjam
Summary: "Ford wasn’t mad. It was ultimately up to Stanley whether or not he got a haircut. No, that wasn’t the problem. He was just starting to get frustrated with the fact that Stan was clearly avoiding this for a reason without just talking to him about it. He obviously felt the need to make excuses and leave Ford in the dark.Weren’t they past this shit?"(Stan's hair is getting long while they're at sea, but he avoids getting it cut without telling Ford why.)
Relationships: Ford Pines and Stan Pines, Past Stan Pines/"Lazy" Susan Wentworth, Past Stan Pines/Jimmy Snakes, Stan Pines and Mabel Pines
Series: lgbtq+ gravity falls [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/582943
Comments: 18
Kudos: 292





	Pastel Sailboats

**Author's Note:**

> this fic isn't really canon with the rest of the series because ford isn't aro and mabel uses she/her in this one. neither she nor dipper are necessarily cis though, I just kept she/her for mabel for this one!

The boat rocked gently, cradled by the sleepy sea.

Calm skies rolled above. It had been a few weeks since they had navigated their way through any sort of storm.

Ford hummed mindlessly as he stirred his coffee. The tiny kitchenette was warm and wood-panelled. A few wayward papers and some of Stanley’s beat-up romance novels were scattered across the worn table that was hugged by two booths. Ford’s notes and Stan’s books were both folded-back, dogeared and well-used.

The old creaks and motions of the boat made Ford seasick at the start, but now they felt like home. A few months saw them settle in, getting used to truly living with each other again, instead of just tolerating and occasionally liking each other. Ford had lived with many, many people during his time on the other side of the portal, some of which became very dear to him, but nothing was quite like the feeling of living with someone that so quietly and easily understood him. He would say it was like old times, but it was a better step above that, now that they knew loss and grief and understood each other more.

They had both been through so much. The peace and quiet was on-time and well-deserved.

Ford scooped out a mug that read “world’s best grunkle!” in tall, sturdy letters. His own mug had “world’s best great uncle!” on it, since despite Mabel’s best efforts, he preferred the title of ‘great uncle’ instead of its shortening. That word was Stanley’s. He poured coffee and milk into his brother’s mug, and mixed in some sugar. Ford was used to taking his coffee black after years of limited access to coffee or its ingredients, but Stan’s sweeter tooth was nudging Ford in the direction of more cream and sugar, so he added some to his own coffee as well.

A mug in each hand, he ventured out to the deck. The tinny sound of Mabel’s excited voice carried over to him.

Stan had brought a folding chair out due to the calm waters. Two, actually; he had set up an empty one beside him. In his lap was the laptop that Fiddleford had rigged to receive Internet reception at almost any geographic coordinate in the world.

Ford smiled as he approached and began to make out the tiny images of Mabel and Dipper on the screen. Dipper was drawing something in a journal while Mabel threw her hands around in animated conversation. “What’s so exciting over here, you two?” He pushed Stan’s mug into his hands and took the chair that was clearly a wordless offer for him to join Stanley.

Delight lit up on Stan’s face at the coffee in his hand. “Oh man, thanks.” He immediately took a sip and hummed. “Damn, this is good stuff, Ford. You’re really perfectin’ the craft.”

“Language,” Ford admonished.

“The kids are 14 now, I think they can survive a few damns and shits every once in a while.” Stan took a longer sip of his coffee.

“Yeah,” Mabel chimed in. “Dipper even says that stuff all the time now.”

Dipper almost dropped his pen. “Mabel, shut up!” He steadied himself and finished a note or two. “You do too.”

“Well, duh, Dipdop, I just wanted to push your buttons,” she teased, then poked him in the ribs.

“Ah!” Dipper jumped. With a laugh, he smacked her lightly with his open journal. “Cut it out!”

“Yes, Mabel, maybe you should cut it out,” Ford mused with a twinkle in his eye. “What were you talking about?”

“Oh!” Mabel slammed her palms flat against the table in front of her. “I just noticed how long Grunkle Stan’s hair has got! Lookit, getting all curly and stuff.” She waved her hands in their huge sweater sleeves, maybe to signify a curly shape? Who knows.

The hair at the nape of Stan’s neck did start to scrape against the skin halfway above his shoulders, now that Ford looked. It had begun to curl around his ears just a little bit in old Pines fashion, except with so much gray, the new length looked nothing at all how Stan used to look in their youth. The beginning stages of moppy bangs rested on Stan’s forehead and burst out from under his red knitted hat.

“Hmm,” Ford murmured. “Your hair is definitely longer than I remember it being.”

“What can I say?” He shrugged, linking his hands behind his head and resting it there. “A hardened man of the sea like me doesn’t have a lot of time for that sorta thing.” He played up the bit for the kids, throwing them a smug smile, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes.

Why did Stan sound sheepish?

“Hmm. I suppose we should schedule a pit stop soon for amenities and haircuts.” Ford tapped his chin. “I _do_ need some new pen ink.”

“Oh, great uncle Ford!” Dipper shot up, his journal abandoned. “I just found this awesome ink brand that I think you might like!”

“Well, let’s hear it, my boy.”

“Okay, so, first of all, the pigment is super rich...”

Ford and Dipper became engrossed in the conversation, Mabel chipping in with her own (more glittery and bright) stationary recommendations, but Ford wasn’t distanced enough not to notice how Stan had fallen uncharacteristically silent.

* * *

To be honest, Ford thought that the first time was a fluke. Maybe the second time was a coincidence.

This was the fourth time they had docked near a city to stock up, though. It had been - what, 6 months since that conversation with the kids on the deck? And every time they stopped somewhere, Ford went to the barber’s for a trim and Stan followed. However, Stan always found a way to miss the actual event. Sometimes he even had multiple excuses. A guy mugged him, he mugged a guy, he had to take the world’s longest piss, whatever.

Ford wasn’t mad. It was ultimately up to Stanley whether or not he got a haircut. No, that wasn’t the problem. He was just starting to get frustrated with the fact that Stan was clearly avoiding this for a reason without just _talking_ to him about it. He obviously felt the need to make excuses and leave Ford in the dark.

Weren’t they past this shit?

Until Stanley talked to him, there could be a million reasons for Stan to bail. Maybe something had changed in the years that they had been apart, and he now hated the feeling of clippers or scissors on his skin. Maybe barbers themselves made him anxious. Perhaps it was a hangup with money, since Stan seemed to have a lot of those - Ford had to convince him on more than one occasion to invest in quality clothing for himself instead of heading for the cheapest aisles every time they went shopping.

Whatever it was, Ford wouldn’t know unless Stan said something. And he wasn’t saying _anything_.

The bell above the barber shop door rang as Ford entered. Predictably, Stan made to follow but then stopped at the doorway, making a show of looking over to a nearby shop window. “Hey, Ford, I think I see those pen nibs you wanted over there. I’m gonna go pick them up so that we can hop back on the ship as soon as possible -”

Deep inhale, long exhale. Ford turned around, ignoring the questioning look on the barber clerk’s face. He walked out, letting the door shut and unintentionally forcing Stan to move. “Stanley.”

“What?” He managed to look confused. “The store’s just right there. I’ll be quick -”

“I know you’ll be quick. You’ll just be ten minutes or so, just long enough for the barber to finish my haircut, and then we’ll leave.” Something stormy and tense brewed on Stan’s face, but Ford kept going. He didn’t want to have a fight. He just wanted to say something. “I appreciate the thought about the pen nibs. If you want, you can go get them and skip out on this again. I don’t care why you’re avoiding the barbershop. I just want you to be happy. Okay?”

Stan was silent. “Okay,” he near-whispered.

“Alright.” Ford gave him an amicable pat on the shoulder. He tried to give a reassuring smile - he was getting better at that these days. “I’m going to go get my hair cut. I’ll see you when I’m done.”

As miniscule trimmings of brownish-gray fell to the ground around Ford, he thought and thought. His eyes followed the clippings when they were swept into the trash.

Ten minutes later, Ford walked out with a fresh trim and sharper sideburns. He ruffled his hair until it was sufficiently chaotic; the barbershop always blow-dried it into a neat coif that felt rather restricting. He found his brother on a nearby bench, turning a box of small pen nibs over and over in his hands and staring into it intensely like he was scrying for something.

“Hey.”

Stan jumped. He clutched the pen nibs and looked up at Ford. Worry wrinkled his brow and tightened his jaw. “Uh, hey. Lookin’ good,” he tried.

“Yes, the man did a good job.”

Ford didn’t say anything else. They walked back to the Stan O’ War II together in complete silence. It was half-comfortable, half-unnerving.

To Ford, Stan always seemed to have aged much faster than he should have. While Ford kept some of his brown, Stan’s hair was leached of most color into a silvery gray. Deeper wrinkles carved themselves into his face, some from laughter, some not. Right now, though, Stanley’s profile was incredibly young with the fear of a child about to be scolded. Ford’s heart constricted.

What was Stan so scared of?

They boarded the boat and entered the cabin quietly. Ford shouldered off his jacket and Stan tossed his hoodie onto the nearby kitchen booth. It was supposed to be inviting. It wasn’t.

“Oh, uh.” Stan dug his hand into a pant pocket and fished out the palm-sized square box from earlier. “Here’s your nibs.” He held them out awkwardly to Ford, who took them.

Ew. Apparently Stan’s hand had been sweaty.

“Thank you,” Ford muttered. He put them down on the kitchen table beside his inkwells and notes. Trying those out could wait. He needed to know what was going wrong here. “Can we sit down?”

“Uh, sure, Sixer, ya don’t gotta ask me to do that.” Stan looked puzzled.

“Yes, but I want us to sit here together.”

Wordlessly, Stan slid into the booth, self-consciously raking a hand through the hair that now brushed just past his shoulders in gentle gray curls. He looked like he was waiting for the world to crash down on him. The single bulb above them gave an unwanted impression of an interrogation room in the moment, Ford realized. He and Stan had both been in their fair share of those in the past. Nothing he could do about that. He just had to try to sound calming.

“Stanley, you’re lying, and it’s worrying me.”

That was more blunt than calming.

“Well, I’m obviously not gonna lie anymore, you figured it out anyways,” Stan grumbled, folding and unfolding a dogear on the cover of one of his old books that was resting on the table. “Smartypants.”

“What? What did I figure out?” Ford laughed incredulously, hands thrown in the air. “I’m just confused!”

“You figured out that I was lyin’ to ya about all the shit that stopped me from walkin’ into one of those barbershops. Well, no, actually, that one time I _did_ mug a guy, but I could’ve just gotten a haircut after, and I didn’t.” He looked down at his lap. “Sorry for lying, Ford.”

“It’s alright. That’s not the part I care about.”

Stan’s head shot up. “It’s not?”

“No!” Ford pushed up his glasses. “I care about the reason why you felt like you couldn’t just _talk_ to me, Stanley. What reason to avoid a haircut could be so dire that you had to hide it from me?”

A corner of the thin book cover tore off in Stan’s hands along the folded dogear line. Stan shred the triangle of pressed paper into pieces. He didn’t say anything.

Ford’s lips thinned. Time to try a different approach.

"Is it money? We're doing just fine. You can afford a trim, or-or if you can't, I can afford it for you," Ford said softly.

That elicited no response.

"Or is it the feeling? I know I can't stand tight necklines anymore after some of the things that have… happened to me. Is it like that?" Ford swallowed against all the reasons there could possibly be for a man to hate scissors near his neck. Maybe now that Stan didn't have to keep up appearances for his business, he didn't want to put himself through a haircut anymore.

Stan dropped the shreds of paper onto the table and put his head in his hands. "It's not any of that, Ford - I mean I guess it could be some of that, kind of, but -" A frustrated noise escaped him.

"What is it?"

Stan clasped his hands and refused to look his brother in the eye. "I just don't want you to think I'm - I'm weird or something." He clearly tried to be nonchalant about it, but his voice wavered at the end and he swallowed thickly.

What? "Stanley, look at me."

He did, eyes watering.

"I have six fingers on each hand," Ford stated. "Whatever it is, I will _not_ think you're weird. I promise." He would never. He thought his brother was rash sometimes, a bit impulsive, but not weird. Never weird.

"Okay." A deep breath. "Okay, Ford. I just, um." His voice almost fell off completely. "I actually like it, okay? I like it long."

Oh.

That was what his brother was so worried about? A preference for how he looked? Ford blinked. "That's it?"

Maybe that wasn't the right thing to say, but it practically fell out of his mouth.

"Yeah, I…" Stan wiped at his face to catch tears before they even had the chance to escape, like if they didn’t fall then they had never happened in the first place.

"Whoa, what - why are you crying?" This was, to put it simply, not Ford's area of expertise. Recently he had been learning a lot about empathy and support both by doing and experiencing, but that didn't mean either twin was the best in the world at it.

"Ha!" Stan laughed. "I don't know, it's just… coming outta nowhere." He sniffed. "I'd say sorry, but you'd kick my ass," he joked.

Ford nodded. "That's true." Stan had a propensity to apologize unnecessarily, especially in the first few months. They did have long talks about that one, ones where Ford might have been a tad… aggressive.

To be honest, the idea that Stan just _liked_ his hair long had never even crossed Ford's mind. Stanley was always a macho man, always the one to stay up late to work on his car, always the one to chase the girls. Ford was so hung up on the possibility of baggage that he didn't see the most obvious option right in front of him. Although that option might carry its own unforeseen baggage too.

Ford let out a nostalgic laugh. “Remember when dad would drag us out to get our hair cut when we were kids?”

Something about the memory was funny to Stan too. He chuckled. “Yeah. My hair would always get a bit too long between trims and he would hate how my hair fell in my face. Said it made me look like a girl.” Stan quieted. “He never had that problem with you, though.”

That was true. Ford winced. “My hair was always more - gravity-defying. It kind of just floated all over the place. Made it look short enough, so I suppose he didn’t care. I’m sorry,” Ford whispered.

“Yeah. Me too.” Stan toyed with a small strip of paper he had pulled off of the book cover. “I hated when he had those fits and got our heads shaved bare.”

“Oh man.” Ford had forgotten about that. “We looked ridiculous.” When their father got particularly angry, he would sometimes take them for an early visit to the barber and punish them by getting rid of their hair. Little boys usually wouldn’t care about that - it was just a different haircut - but Ford _liked_ his hair, and more than that, Stan _loved_ his. So it really was a punishment after all. Afterwards, their silhouettes were those of little soldiers off to war. Really, though, they were just off to school.

Tentatively, Ford asked, “Is _he_ why you’re growing it out? Why just now?”

Stan hunched inwards. “Well. He’s not exactly why. Yeah, the barbershop sucked as kids, so I guess I got a little fear from that. But I just wanted to be able to have the haircut _I_ wanted.” He scratched his neck. “Even had a damn mullet a few decades back.”

That unstuck something in Ford’s brain, a jolt of memory. “Oh. Oh! You had that when you came up to Gravity Falls.” Healed scars striped carefully over those words. Another long talk of theirs.

“Haha, shit! I did, didn’t I?” Stan smiled sadly.

“So you had long hair then, why did you cut it?”

He shrugged. “It was sorta ingrained in me. Good, put-together men don’t have pretty hair.” His eyes began to water again but he pushed through. “After a few years, the long hair was _really_ out of fashion. I got rid of it. I was tryin’ to at the very least convince people I _looked_ like you, and the Stanford Pines I remembered wouldn’t be caught dead lookin’ like a…” He shook his head, some sort of word dying on his tongue. “Anyway. Once I was finally financially stable, I got it cut. And it was short ever since.” Part of him unfurled, stopped being so tense. “Y’know, it was only an accident that we had been on sea long enough for it to get a bit shaggy, and by then I thought, ‘hey, I could keep this shit up.’ So here we are.”

“What… what were you going to say? What did you think you would be seen as?” Ford wanted to know, but he had the feeling he already did.

Very, very quietly, into the rock of the boat and the groaning of the hull, Stanley murmured, “A queer.”

Because of shame, Stanley didn’t look the way he wanted to. Because of shame, he felt the need to lie to Ford for six months straight.

Something in Ford’s chest tightened, then loosened.

“Stanley, I…” Ford searched the air for the words to say this. They were heavy words. “It… wouldn’t be completely incorrect.”

Stan blinked back his tears. “What? What’re you saying?”

“That image of me, the one that you were trying to avoid. I mean…” Ford waved a hand. This wasn’t how he expected to tell Stan this, but then again, it had never really come up otherwise. He had figured it didn’t matter, not anymore, not after everything they’ve been through. But clearly it did matter if this was how Stan felt about himself just because of a haircut. “I like men. So.” An awkward laugh followed.

Stan’s eyes widened. " _Really_?"

"Yes! I honestly thought for a while that you had already known, with how bad I was at even pretending to ask girls out."

"Y'know, that makes a lotta sense now that I think about it." Stan messed with his hands. "And… if you had told me back then, I would've been okay with it, you know. It wouldn't have mattered to me."

Ford smiled. "I know, Stanley. But it still means a lot."

Stan suddenly made a face. "Does that mean - you and McGucket -"

What?

Before he could help himself, Ford burst out laughing. "No! No, we were just friends. I guess maybe in college I had a crush, but that was all." He drummed his fingers on the table. That reminded him of something. "Did you ever get back in touch with Carla McCorkle?"

"Eh, nah. Especially not after what I did to that hippie's car," Stan grumbled. "Actually, I, uh, after I got kicked out, I was with someone for a few years."

"Really?" Stan had never mentioned that, not even when he had been regaining memories piecemeal and blurting them out at random when they came to him. Dinner tables got awkward when you started pouring out facts about your criminal lifestyle in front of your family. "You never said anything about her."

"Well. His name was Jimmy Snakes." Stan reddened and didn't look Ford in the eye.

Hold on.

"Stanley. His _legal name_ was Jimmy Snakes?" That just sounded irresponsible on Stan's part. The kind of person that called himself that probably wasn't the most morally upstanding individual.

"We were in the same motorcycle gang and he was cute, okay? Get off my back!" Stan crossed his arms. "Didn't last, though. I had to skip town and he was moving on too. Was nice while it lasted."

Quietly, Ford asked, "No one else?"

"Hmm…" Stan rubbed his chin. "Well, there is that classy gal at the diner back in Gravity Falls… we even went on a few dates, but nothing came of it -"

"You dated _Susan_?!"

“Ha, yeah, she still calls me to tell me to say hi to her cats!”

They both laughed the tension out of them.

Stan smiled a careful, hopeful smile tinged with nostalgia and something new. “So I guess we’re both weirdos, huh.”

“Stan, we’ve always been weirdos,” Ford grinned. “But…” He looked down at his hands, uncurling his six fingers. “I prefer to see that as a strength, not a weakness.”

For a moment, Stan just blinked rapidly and tried to get his expression under control. Then a mirror grin broke wide and pure across his face. He raised his hand. “High six?”

Ford would never say no to that ever again.

“High six.”

* * *

“Ahhh!!! We’re so excited to see you!”

Mabel’s scream came filtered out of Ford’s flip phone. He smiled to himself and moved the phone from one hand to the other to shoulder a bag. “We’re almost there. The bus is stopping now, actually.” As he spoke, the underpaid bus driver up front shouted to the back, “next stop, Gravity Falls!” and aggressively hit the brakes, skidding towards the rapidly-approaching bus stop. Ford fell forward a bit, his chest smacking into the back of the bus seat in front of him. Maybe he should have waited for the bus to stop before standing up. This bus driver seemed… unstable.

“I know, but I don’t wanna hang up!” She yelled. “I can’t wait to see how the rugged sea has made you and Stan all cool and mysterious!”

Ford burst out into laughter. “Trust me, Mabel, we’re the same people.” He glanced at his brother, who was currently examining his face in the reflection of the window and muttering to himself about growing old. “Very much so.” He couldn’t help a fond smile. "We'll see you soon, alright?" He pocketed his cell.

A loud sniff. Stan was dusting cracker crumbs off his ‘SEA STANS TOUR 2013’ sweater, hopelessly trying to pick out the bits that had buried themselves between the yarn stitches. He sniffed the air again. “Ford, do I smell weird? Usually I’m alright with it, but I don’t wanna scare off the kids.”

“It’ll be fine, Stan. Those kids _did_ put up with your weird old man smell for an entire summer. I doubt they would mind. Besides, we’re already here.” The bus had screeched to a stop. Ford wrestled his way into the aisle, two bags and a satchel hanging off of him.

But Stan wasn't following.

Ford looked back. Stan was hunched over, one hand clutching his own bag tightly and the other tugging at his hair in worried strokes.

"Hey."

Stan looked up to Ford.

Ford's eyes were soft. "They love you, Stan. Trust me. They don’t care what you look like." A mysterious clatter erupted from the front of the bus, followed by angry growling. "Now let's get off this thing before that bus driver loses it."

The two Pines clunked off the well-used bus steps and onto the dirt of the tiny town of Gravity Falls. They wore goofy smiles and matching sweaters. Ford's hair was naturally unkempt and floating out in every cardinal direction. Stan coughed up a few cracker crumbs onto himself. Nothing really changed about them, in the end.

They were back from an adventure. And in front of them were Dipper and Mabel.

Before anyone could say anything, Mabel loudly gasped. "Oh my gosh, you guys are so adventure-y and travel-y!" Dramatically, she whispered, "The ocean's changed you."

"Uh, Mabel, I don’t see it," Dipper laughed.

The kids didn’t look _that_ different - perhaps thanks to consistent video chats between the four of them that made any changes seem gratuitous - but they didn’t look the same as when Ford and Stan left, either. Dipper was a bit taller, his voice a bit deeper (though still cracking up a storm). Mabel was taller as well, and her face had shed some of its baby fat. What stayed the same, though, was their smiles.

“Kids!” Stan exclaimed. Pure joy. Ford felt it too.

Like second nature, both him and Ford opened their arms wide to accept the kids’ crash-landing into their arms.

“Hug-pile!” Mabel screamed directly into Ford’s ear.

Meanwhile, Dipper was looking up at his great-uncles. “Wow, Grunkle Stan, you really look like a pirate now.”

“What?” Stan grunted. “Why?”

“Oh my gosh, it’s your hair!” Mabel realized.

Stan tensed. "Yeah, uh, I guess I missed a haircut or two…"

"I mean, I know it was longer but it was always in your hat when we Skyped!" She abruptly stuck her hands in his hair, which was free from the confines of his typical beanie.

"Gah! Mabel!" Stan pushed her hands away, to Dipper and Ford's laughter.

"Sorry Grunkle Stan!" Mabel said. "But you'll have to let me braid it sooner or later." It wasn't a suggestion, but a fact. Ford sometimes found Mabel's sheer determination intimidating. Whatever she chose to do with her life, she definitely wouldn't half-ass it. "Do you have any hair ties?"

"Um. No."

Dipper pinched the bridge of his nose. “Come on, Mabel, Soos and Melody are waiting back at the Shack.”

Ford put a heavy hand on his shoulder. With full seriousness, he said, “It’s too late, Dipper. She’s in deep now.”

"Gasp!!! You can't have beautiful long hair without hair ties!" Mabel said to Stan. She twisted her own hair tie out of her hair and long brown waves fell loosely past her shoulders. With a smile, she shoved the hair tie into Stan's hands. He looked down. It was bright blue elastic adorned with neon-pink plastic dolphin-shaped beads.

"I wore a watery-themed one to celebrate your return from the sea trip!" Mabel exclaimed. "But I want you to have it instead."

"Oh." Stan made an unidentifiable garbled noise deep in his throat. “Thanks, sweetie.” His rough fingers awkwardly held the small thing up. They could buy ones Stan actually liked later, Ford figured. To his surprise though, Stan immediately went to put it in his hair and paused. “Uh… How do I…”

“Psh, it’s easy! Turn around!” Mabel demanded.

Stan slowly lowered himself onto the bus stop bench and turned so that Mabel could kneel beside him to put his hair up. “This is embarrassing.”

“No, it’s awesome!” She made a simple ponytail that sat low against Stan’s neck. “See? Now you’re _super_ pirate material.”

“She’s right, you know.” Ford adjusted his bags again. “All you need now is the eyepatch.”

“Eh, I left mine with Soos. That’s his now,” Stan waved off. He braced his hands on his knees and forced himself up. The bus ride hadn’t been good on Stan. “Alright, let’s go.” He went to lean down and grab his bag, but Dipper swiped it first.

“I got it, Grunkle Stan.”

The four walked back to the Shack, Stan’s hair swinging from an eye-stinging neon aquatic hair tie.

* * *

It was another calm week for the ocean, and travelling had been generally easy so far.

This was their second excursion, so they had a better idea of what they needed and how they needed to do things. It was even better than the first trip. In fact, this time around Ford and Stan were organized enough to plan out a suggested course and let Mabel and Dipper know what it was.

The air was warm and inviting at their current stop. Ford left his trenchcoat at home, and Stan forewent his hoodie. There had been a few reports of coastal mutation anomalies in this Mediterranian town. They had looked into it last trip, but Ford wished to do a follow-up report and see how the mutated fish were doing now that the cause (a magical algae) was identified.

First though, they went to a PO box they had rented and retrieved the package inside - it was addressed to them, from Mabel and Dipper. Back at the boat, they opened it up.

Warmth spread throughout Ford at the sight of what Mabel and Dipper sent him: a few mysterious strands of fur from a new creature Dipper had discovered in Piedmont, and a sweater Mabel had knitted to replace the one that had been destroyed by an Icelandic iteration of the Kraken.

Meanwhile, Stan pulled out a homemade journal from Dipper and six hand-crafted scrunchies. Half of them were solid colors - maroon, deep blue, green - and the other half was bright custom fabric prints of sailboats and monsters and hearts.

“Wow, Dipper’s craftsmanship has really been improving.” Ford examined the neat binding work.

Stan gave a lopsided smile. “Right? I’m actually proud of him.” He held up the pack of handmade scrunchies. “And obviously Mabel’s always going full steam ahead.”

“That’s really sweet of her.”

“It - it is, isn’t it.” He pulled out the dolphin-beaded hair tie that he had held onto from the last time they had seen the kids. To Ford’s surprise, he didn’t go for the plain scrunchies and instead picked up the pastel one with the sailboats printed on it. It was easy for him to put up his own hair now. The colors of the scrunchie were eye-catching and not subtle in the least, and the pastels were soft, gentle pinks and blues.

But Stan used it anyways.

Ford couldn’t help his smile at how far Stan had come.

From then on, Ford never saw Stan wear a plain elastic hair tie again.

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be shorter.... lmao
> 
> thanks for coming to my ted talk about stan and his hair?? idk I have emotions
> 
> if I added a work to this series where I dumped art about scenes from this series, would anyone be interested?? lately I've been wanting to doodle stuff for this!


End file.
